Pirates of the World Wide Web Essay

The rapidly growing rate of the internet piracy of music, movies, software and video games has their respective companies sweating bullets.

Internet piracy is the illegal copying of a product. Music began being recorded and sold when Columbia Records introduced the vinyl LP in 1948. As we know, technology has made many advances since then.

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The tape was introduced in 1955 and 25 years later in 1980, Phillips and Sony agreed on a standard for the compact disc. Personal computers were not introduced until 1981 but the World Wide Web wasn”t created by Tim Berners-Lee until 1990.The format that downloadable internet music files are in, MP3, was approved in 1992. The combination of all these technological advances have made it possible for internet piracy to be born and take place in today’s society. The first major website to make huge profits off of MP3 technology was Napster. Napster was founded in May of 1999 by Shawn Fanning.

Fanning, a freshman at Northeastern University, began peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, allowing users to trade music over the Internet without paying or sacrificing quality.Napster spread quickly, especially among teens, through word of mouth and was soon a must-have on everyone’s personal computer. By October 31, 2000, Napster founder Shawn Fanning claimed it had 38 million members at the time. But as Napster grew, it grabbed the attention of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA, on behalf of the record labels it represents, sued Napster in the U. S.

District Court in San Francisco on grounds of copyright infringement.The RIAA was the first association to sue Napster while Metallica brought a suit against Napster for copyright infringement and unlawful use of a digital audio interface device. And shortly after, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that Napster users are illegally copying and distributing copyrighted commercial songs. It orders Napster to stop its users from trading and distributing copyrighted material. However, the ruling allows Napster to continue operating until Patel’s injunction is modified to comply with the appeal court’s decision.After numerous court dates, on July 2, 2001, Napster had been shut down. Napster was the easiest way to get the music people wanted. I personally used Napster from the day I learned of it until the day it was shut down.

Napster changed the way me and my friends looked at music. Nearly everyday we came to school telling each other what we downloaded and liked the night before. We never considered if it was right or wrong. We never examined the fact that the artists weren”t receiving any profits off of our downloading and recording compact discs.

Although I understand the situation now, I still download music now through other sources. After Napster was shut down, the search for a Napster clone was on. Kazaa, WinMX, Audiogalaxy are currently the leaders in Napster clones.

Kazaa and WinMX offer audio and video files as well as pictures, while Audiogalaxy only offers music files. I have used WinMX and still currently use Kazaa occasionally. Another effective way, available only to America Online subscribers, to download music is to go into America Online private chat rooms.In these rooms, there are servers who have lists of thousands of audio and video files, software, and video games.

These files include music CD’s that have not even been released to stores yet and movies that have recently been opened in theaters. With over 40% of Web users subscribed to America Online, this should be a major concern for the music, movie, software, and video game industries. Although it is not just the music industry being affected by internet piracy, the music industry is affected much more than any other.

Artists have tried numerous strategies to avoid their albums being downloaded off of the internet. Multi-platinum and Grammy-winning rapper Jay-Z has pushed up the release dates of his CD’s a couple of times. Other artists have put special features on the CD such as applications for personal computers with additional audio and video footage. As bootleggers (the people downloading the music) have become a more serious issue, artists have begun to speak out against them. Bootleggers directly influence artists” profits off of CD’s and their status through SoundScan.

SoundScan compiles all record sales and, along with the RIAA, determines if an album is considered, gold (500,000 copies sold), platinum (1 million copies sold), or diamond (10 million copies sold). Another multi-platinum and Grammy-winning rapper, Eminem, expressed his disgust with bootleggers by saying, “I work hard and anybody can just throw a computer up and download my music for free. It could kill the whole purpose of making music. ” He also discussed how downloading music takes away the excitement of waiting for the release date, buying it and tearing the wrapper off and listening to it.Eminem is certainly right with that statement. Before bootlegging was around or popular there was a certain excitement in counting down until the day your favorite musician comes out with his or her CD, looking at the credits, and taking special care of it because you spent $15 dollars on it. Rapper Nelly feels the issue is in black and white saying, ” either you pay for it or you don”t.

And, you”re not paying for it. ” The ethical issue in internet piracy is pretty obvious; should people be able to trade files from computer to computer or is it stealing? It is obviously stealing.No matter what the product is, music, movies, video games, or software, it costs money to be produced and they”re released to stores to make a profit. People are able to obtain these products and make full use of them without specifically paying for the product. Sure bootleggers have to pay for the CD and DVD Recorders, CD-Recordables, and special chips for video games but none of that goes to the creators and copyright holders of the products.

The millions of bootleggers know what they”re doing is wrong but they also know that there are no consequences for their actions.Until the government devises a plan to eliminate all ways to download files that would otherwise have to be paid for or trace who is bootlegging and prosecute them, bootlegging will continue to be a problem. To reduce bootlegging, artists should offer something more than just a CD when it is purchased. This way there will be something exclusive that fans will want that they couldn”t get off the internet for free. Bootlegging is definitely wrong but it will not go away until some type of government intervention takes place. The same thing that happened to Napster has to take place with the rest of the methods of attaining files for free.